Electronic circuitry, such as circuits embodied in integrated circuits (ICs) continue to increase in the number of circuits or cells and, hence, in their overall complexity. The increased complexity of the circuits continues to pose challenges for circuit designers that typically analyze or simulate the circuit before its physical realization in an IC. Furthermore, the circuit complexity has increased while design cycles have typically remained unchanged or have become shorter.
To meet those challenges, circuit designers increasingly rely on Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools (sometimes known as Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools) to analyze and simulate their designs before physical implementation of the design in an IC. EDA tools provide a way of analyzing the circuit's behavior and making any desired modifications or enhancements before arriving a final design.
The analysis and design process, however, tends to have an iterative nature, and hence can consume relatively large amounts of time. To meet the challenges posed by more complex design and shorter design cycles, designers seek EDA tools with improved accuracy and efficiency.